First are always special... first words... first day at school.... first love.... first kiss..... first time...... first broken heart... first... online profile.... and first online date.... So this is the story of my first date with someone from the cyber-space....
I was so scared.... meeting someone online.... what kind of pervert uses internet to meet people? That was January 2008,... yes, I opened my profile as a part of my new years resolution of 'finding love'.... so precisely, on the 2nd of January 2008, I created an account on GaydarGirls... In 2008 I was 22 and I was so naive....
I thought that it was going to be the year of love.... How wouldn't I believe in love when No One from Alicia Keys was on the top charts? (one of the best songs about love ever written).... I started to chat with few girls, and soon discovered that the website was highly uncomfortable to chat: limited number of messages that you can send and, limited number of profiles that you can visit... Thank God that mobile applications have solved that out.... but well, it was 2008 and there was not such a thing as a smart phone yet....
She was definitely not my type: blond and blue eyes. I tend to like Mediterranean looking people and even though she was from the South, she was looking very Germanic.... I only accepted to meet her because we seem to had a friend in common, more of an acquaintance for me.... and actually for her too as this friend in common was the new girlfriend of her ex-girlfriend... anyway.... I was 22, highly inexperience in dating girls and recently out of the dark closet.... I still had some issues accepting my sexuality and I needed to explore a bit more the field....
We decided to meet up in town, I was so nervous, thinking that I was not going to recognize her from the pictures, or that it was going to be a fake profile...... but she arrived.... She was very pretty.... we went for a drink in a very cheap gay bar and had few Heinekens there...
I think that we did go to few more places after that... but my memory is a bit blurred.... the only moment that I remember after that is when we took the night bus.... we went to the back of the bus and started to make out.....
OMG! what I was doing??? Making out with a girl in a public transport??? What if someone saw me???...... I was still on that phase of coming out... anyway, the alcohol helped me to..... not give a f*** about the rest of the world and enjoyed my date....
She was a brilliant kisser and had a very interesting conversation. She was an art student, passionate about art and humanities.... and I was 22 and looking for an adventure....
The date ended up in a bus stop as I had to catch another night bus home.... I don't remember the details, but we agreed to meet up again... and so we did.... we went to an art exhibition, and for ethnic food, and we also went for drinks a few times... and we had sex with 'The origin of love' from Hedwig and the Angry Inch on the background... (my very best favorite movie of all times....) I was still too scared to fully enjoyed it but she made it easy and guided me a bit in the art... although, I had needed few more like her to gain confidence in my moves.... I owned her a great deal of self-esteem in my fully out lesbian persona....
As you might guess... it didn't work out.... I received a Scholarship to study at the University of Sussex in Brighton and left.... and well... it was too new to even consider anything further.... so it died.... but I still remember it with a smile... we are still friends on Facebook, although we don't interact much, I still like to think that we are friends....
I wish her the best... I think that she got a full time girlfriend and is working well and I'm very happy for her as she deserves to find love! As for me.... well.... I'm still in the search on the cyber-space....
As everyone that I've met, she taught me something... and I don't think that I would be fully out and happy with my sexuality without her help while I was going through my 'teen' lesbian days.... so for all of this,
THANK YOU!!! You were my first online date and as you can see from this blog.... not the last!!!
Saturday 26 April 2014
Wednesday 23 April 2014
Love is not about finding someone to fix you....
This story, as all of the others, starts with an online message on OkCupid. I have to say that since they had the block on Firefox, and therefore, they were on the news and all over Facebook, I've noticed an increase in the number of profiles on the site.
I guess that the free publicity that they got has also been good for my online quest on finding love, as just that week I got several messages from newbies on the site.
One of the girls that messaged me was Kat: a 28 years-old bisexual that, as everyone else in the online world, was looking for love. Initially, I thought that she was not my type, but I'm open to give a chance to everyone since love is unpredictable and unexpected...
It took us a while to actually meet up. I been having a very busy month and she also had exams, but we finally agree on meeting up for coffee on the North Lanes.
We went to a coffee place near Komedia, she offered to go to the bar and order for both of us and so I asked her to bring me a herbal tea. It took her a good long 20 minutes to come back from the bar, but she finally sat down and the date started. She was tall, not too tall, but taller than me, dye bleach blonde, blue eyes and plain dressing style.
She was wearing a two decades old purple snickers that reminded me to those I had when I was 8 (how cute...). She seem not to be counting calories these days as she ordered a tall ice-latte with cream on top, actually, probably she has not been counting calories over the last decade... but I don't mind love-handles....
We talked about sports, I recently bought a new bike and I've been cycling across Sussex, so I was telling her about my latest cycling trip. She seem to be very interested, she told me that when she first moved to Brighton she was a member of a gym and she wanted to go back to exercise again.
She also told me that she played music before, and she wanted to play music again. She also told me that she was a smoker, but she wanted to quit..... I could see that she was talking too much about her ideal self, the person she wanted to become... and too little of her actual self, the person she actually was....
According to Ayala Malach, "Why we choose the lovers we choose", we fall in love with someone who can see us for who we want to be, who can see the best version of ourselves... however, I think that trying to find someone who can fix us is not the objective....
How many times have my housemate told me that she will quit smoking once she gets a boyfriend?..... well.... you should quit smoking for yourself, exercise for yourself and explore your creative side for yourself....
Love is not about finding someone to fix you.... You might fall in love with someone that sees you under a nice light, but you need to become who you want to be for yourself, don't expect that a magic prince/princess is going to come and solve everything that is wrong in your life....
The date ended up at the beach with very little conversation. I decided to leave, make an excuse, we were not really feeling it and I didn't wanted to force it, so I said that I had to go somewhere else.... she told me that she will call me.... but again we both knew that it was not going to happen.... oh... well.... one more OkCupid disaster I guess....
I guess that the free publicity that they got has also been good for my online quest on finding love, as just that week I got several messages from newbies on the site.
One of the girls that messaged me was Kat: a 28 years-old bisexual that, as everyone else in the online world, was looking for love. Initially, I thought that she was not my type, but I'm open to give a chance to everyone since love is unpredictable and unexpected...
It took us a while to actually meet up. I been having a very busy month and she also had exams, but we finally agree on meeting up for coffee on the North Lanes.
We went to a coffee place near Komedia, she offered to go to the bar and order for both of us and so I asked her to bring me a herbal tea. It took her a good long 20 minutes to come back from the bar, but she finally sat down and the date started. She was tall, not too tall, but taller than me, dye bleach blonde, blue eyes and plain dressing style.
She was wearing a two decades old purple snickers that reminded me to those I had when I was 8 (how cute...). She seem not to be counting calories these days as she ordered a tall ice-latte with cream on top, actually, probably she has not been counting calories over the last decade... but I don't mind love-handles....
We talked about sports, I recently bought a new bike and I've been cycling across Sussex, so I was telling her about my latest cycling trip. She seem to be very interested, she told me that when she first moved to Brighton she was a member of a gym and she wanted to go back to exercise again.
She also told me that she played music before, and she wanted to play music again. She also told me that she was a smoker, but she wanted to quit..... I could see that she was talking too much about her ideal self, the person she wanted to become... and too little of her actual self, the person she actually was....
According to Ayala Malach, "Why we choose the lovers we choose", we fall in love with someone who can see us for who we want to be, who can see the best version of ourselves... however, I think that trying to find someone who can fix us is not the objective....
How many times have my housemate told me that she will quit smoking once she gets a boyfriend?..... well.... you should quit smoking for yourself, exercise for yourself and explore your creative side for yourself....
Love is not about finding someone to fix you.... You might fall in love with someone that sees you under a nice light, but you need to become who you want to be for yourself, don't expect that a magic prince/princess is going to come and solve everything that is wrong in your life....
The date ended up at the beach with very little conversation. I decided to leave, make an excuse, we were not really feeling it and I didn't wanted to force it, so I said that I had to go somewhere else.... she told me that she will call me.... but again we both knew that it was not going to happen.... oh... well.... one more OkCupid disaster I guess....
Thursday 17 April 2014
Other's people success stories - Monika & Jo
After all my failures, I feel that I needed to talk about other people's success stories to keep my faith up on the online dating world. So, here we go...
In the early summer of 2011, I received a message from a girl who was new in town. She wanted to meet people and send a very generic message. I answered as I liked the idea of meeting several girls at once, you double your chances....
She invited me to a lesbian dinner in a Mexican restaurant with other lesbians that she had met online. I arrived early and saw a lesbian at the bar. How did I know that it was a lesbian? Well, her short boyish hair was given away her sexual tendencies, and her clothes too....
I introduced my self and waited for the rest of the group. We were finally about 6, all lesbians, all internationals (it was almost the UN there... a girl from Switzerland, a girl from Colombia, an a couple of girls from the UK...)
One of the British girls, Jo was the one that invited me. She seemed to know everyone and acted a bit like the host of the night... She was pretty and very enthusiastic. We had dinner and then went for a drink after. Everyone was very nice, but unfortunately no one was my type.
We decided to meet up again. In our next meeting, the Colombian girl, Monika, and Jo, started to make out, I did not see that coming.... Monika was around 38-39 and Jo was 10 years younger and had definitely not the same dressing style... but well... whatever floats your boat, right?
We kept in touch for a little while and I saw the relationship growing.... they went from dating to moving in together, to start up a business together and to.... marriage! They got married this week and I am very happy for them.... their success make me think about the limitations that we put in ourselves when it comes to choose our ideal partner....
I tend to look for girls my age, or 5 years up or down... I call it my 'born on the 80's rule', as I was born in 1985, therefore everyone born within my decade is potentially datable and on my online profiles I limit the age to that....
Should I open my search limitations? What is the limit in age difference? is there even such a thing as a limit in age difference when it comes to love?
In the early summer of 2011, I received a message from a girl who was new in town. She wanted to meet people and send a very generic message. I answered as I liked the idea of meeting several girls at once, you double your chances....
She invited me to a lesbian dinner in a Mexican restaurant with other lesbians that she had met online. I arrived early and saw a lesbian at the bar. How did I know that it was a lesbian? Well, her short boyish hair was given away her sexual tendencies, and her clothes too....
I introduced my self and waited for the rest of the group. We were finally about 6, all lesbians, all internationals (it was almost the UN there... a girl from Switzerland, a girl from Colombia, an a couple of girls from the UK...)
One of the British girls, Jo was the one that invited me. She seemed to know everyone and acted a bit like the host of the night... She was pretty and very enthusiastic. We had dinner and then went for a drink after. Everyone was very nice, but unfortunately no one was my type.
We decided to meet up again. In our next meeting, the Colombian girl, Monika, and Jo, started to make out, I did not see that coming.... Monika was around 38-39 and Jo was 10 years younger and had definitely not the same dressing style... but well... whatever floats your boat, right?
We kept in touch for a little while and I saw the relationship growing.... they went from dating to moving in together, to start up a business together and to.... marriage! They got married this week and I am very happy for them.... their success make me think about the limitations that we put in ourselves when it comes to choose our ideal partner....
I tend to look for girls my age, or 5 years up or down... I call it my 'born on the 80's rule', as I was born in 1985, therefore everyone born within my decade is potentially datable and on my online profiles I limit the age to that....
Should I open my search limitations? What is the limit in age difference? is there even such a thing as a limit in age difference when it comes to love?
The Music-Nazi girl with the French name
This story begins as many others with a message on OkCupid. We exchange a couple of messages and she asked me for my Facebook.
I usually don't like to give my FB to random people on the Internet. It's not a privacy issue, it's just that I don't like to have people on my Facebook that I don't know or that I met only once because then I feel bad when I delete them on my annual FB spring-cleaning (I actually never have done this, but I like the joke ....).
I guess that Facebook these days has become the place to do a bit of research and background checks to make sure that the person we are talking to is real and is not a serial killer.
According to my Chinese housemate, there is a word in Chinese that describes the online background search and the translation is something similar to "Human MEAT search". Let's be honest..., we all have snooped on someone's profile before, either to check their relationship status, their sexual preference or their pictures.
When I added her on Facebook, I saw that my ex-housemate was among her friends. Could you guess how did they meet?... Through OkCupid, of course... Brighton is a small place... and the dating pool is limited.
Back to the story, we decided to meet at the White Rabbit. She send me a message saying that she was going to be a bit late and that I should order her a pint.
A pint? Should I get a pint too? I was feeling adventurous and I asked for a Krononnberg top... Let's see where the night takes us...
She arrived and of course, she didn't look like her pictures at all... but she was still nice. The conversation didn't flow much at the beginning. On top of the first date awkwardness, the couple in front of us were passionately making out creating a very uncomfortable atmosphere. Also, the music from the open mic was quite loud preventing us from speaking more than a few words in every communication attempt. The poor early-twenties singer with a guitar on the stage became the target of her music-with-instruments rage.
She told me that she was a Music-Nazi (her words, not mine) and then she asked me about my taste... after that statement it was difficult to confess that my totally gay camp playlists include Disney soundtracks and Broadway musicals so, I gave her a vague answer:
"I like everything really..." I said
"But... you must have a favourite type. What is your favourite band?" She asked.
I decided to show my rocky side, perhaps because she was wearing a leather jacket (was that a prime? excuse my psychological reference...) so, I answered:
"Well... I'm listening to My Chemical Romance a lot these days...."
Her face made a funny expression.
"My Chemical Romance is SHIT!!!! She said (exact words).
EXCUSE ME..... WHAT???? If you go on a date, the first rule is to be polite, and even if you don't like their music, don't tell them that is S***T in their face. I decided to take her comment as a dark humour joke and moved on.
She only liked electronic music and found it completely horrifying that any music with real instruments... The start of the date at that point turned from not very promising to a let's finish my drink soon and leave. But it got worst...
"How do you feel about drugs?" She asked me in these exact words.
What kind of person ask that on a first date?
Well... actually, once a girl asked me if I had any kind of illegal addiction on a first date so it might be an addiction routine check for some people...
Anyway, she was being very serious and I was a bit shocked. and didn't know how to answer that, so again I gave her a vague answer:
"Well... I don't know... I mean... I don't usually do drugs, but I don't judge people who do it..." These words gave her the excuse to rapidly add:
"Good, I DO drugs... My life is all about drugs" Well, these were not actually her exact words, but she said that she couldn't wait for the weekend to get absolutely fucked up.
At that point, she had finished her pint while mine was still almost untouched... She pointed that out and said that she was a fast drinker and she went to the bar to get another. I guess that she realised then that I was not the party buddy that she was looking for in the cyberspace. We both felt a lack of connection... So, I needed to finish my pint in order to end the date.
I finally manned up and drank my pint... Gosh! I was already a bit tipsy.... but not enough to prolong the uncomfortable talk. We decided to go and we walked in the same direction. When we got to the corner of my street she said:
"Well..., I'll call you!. I owe you a drink...."
I like when they take responsibility for the next call, or in that case for not making it.
Anyway, I guess that this was another failure in my quest for finding love in the online pool of Brighton... but I like to be positive and think that statistically speaking, I have one less date to go before finding the right date... However, I'm starting to feel that online dating might not be the way to find love...
Should I concentrate on the offline world?
I usually don't like to give my FB to random people on the Internet. It's not a privacy issue, it's just that I don't like to have people on my Facebook that I don't know or that I met only once because then I feel bad when I delete them on my annual FB spring-cleaning (I actually never have done this, but I like the joke ....).
I guess that Facebook these days has become the place to do a bit of research and background checks to make sure that the person we are talking to is real and is not a serial killer.
According to my Chinese housemate, there is a word in Chinese that describes the online background search and the translation is something similar to "Human MEAT search". Let's be honest..., we all have snooped on someone's profile before, either to check their relationship status, their sexual preference or their pictures.
When I added her on Facebook, I saw that my ex-housemate was among her friends. Could you guess how did they meet?... Through OkCupid, of course... Brighton is a small place... and the dating pool is limited.
Back to the story, we decided to meet at the White Rabbit. She send me a message saying that she was going to be a bit late and that I should order her a pint.
A pint? Should I get a pint too? I was feeling adventurous and I asked for a Krononnberg top... Let's see where the night takes us...
She arrived and of course, she didn't look like her pictures at all... but she was still nice. The conversation didn't flow much at the beginning. On top of the first date awkwardness, the couple in front of us were passionately making out creating a very uncomfortable atmosphere. Also, the music from the open mic was quite loud preventing us from speaking more than a few words in every communication attempt. The poor early-twenties singer with a guitar on the stage became the target of her music-with-instruments rage.
She told me that she was a Music-Nazi (her words, not mine) and then she asked me about my taste... after that statement it was difficult to confess that my totally gay camp playlists include Disney soundtracks and Broadway musicals so, I gave her a vague answer:
"I like everything really..." I said
"But... you must have a favourite type. What is your favourite band?" She asked.
I decided to show my rocky side, perhaps because she was wearing a leather jacket (was that a prime? excuse my psychological reference...) so, I answered:
"Well... I'm listening to My Chemical Romance a lot these days...."
Her face made a funny expression.
"My Chemical Romance is SHIT!!!! She said (exact words).
EXCUSE ME..... WHAT???? If you go on a date, the first rule is to be polite, and even if you don't like their music, don't tell them that is S***T in their face. I decided to take her comment as a dark humour joke and moved on.
She only liked electronic music and found it completely horrifying that any music with real instruments... The start of the date at that point turned from not very promising to a let's finish my drink soon and leave. But it got worst...
"How do you feel about drugs?" She asked me in these exact words.
What kind of person ask that on a first date?
Well... actually, once a girl asked me if I had any kind of illegal addiction on a first date so it might be an addiction routine check for some people...
Anyway, she was being very serious and I was a bit shocked. and didn't know how to answer that, so again I gave her a vague answer:
"Well... I don't know... I mean... I don't usually do drugs, but I don't judge people who do it..." These words gave her the excuse to rapidly add:
"Good, I DO drugs... My life is all about drugs" Well, these were not actually her exact words, but she said that she couldn't wait for the weekend to get absolutely fucked up.
At that point, she had finished her pint while mine was still almost untouched... She pointed that out and said that she was a fast drinker and she went to the bar to get another. I guess that she realised then that I was not the party buddy that she was looking for in the cyberspace. We both felt a lack of connection... So, I needed to finish my pint in order to end the date.
I finally manned up and drank my pint... Gosh! I was already a bit tipsy.... but not enough to prolong the uncomfortable talk. We decided to go and we walked in the same direction. When we got to the corner of my street she said:
"Well..., I'll call you!. I owe you a drink...."
I like when they take responsibility for the next call, or in that case for not making it.
Anyway, I guess that this was another failure in my quest for finding love in the online pool of Brighton... but I like to be positive and think that statistically speaking, I have one less date to go before finding the right date... However, I'm starting to feel that online dating might not be the way to find love...
Should I concentrate on the offline world?
Picture taken in Vegas (2014) that reflects how I felt after my date with the Music-Nazi girl
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